Issue 30 The Underground Summer 2008

Behind the Shield

Jon Calame

In the autumn of 1941, young Petr Ginz of Prague wrote in his diary:

It is foggy. Jews must wear a badge, which looks more or less like this:

On the way to school, I spotted 69 ‘Sheriffs’....

The
etymology of the Star of David in relation to diaspora Jews and
eventually the state of Israel is well known. Yet no one is sure of the
migratory path by which the hexagram traveled from the musty pages of
the medieval Kabbalah onto the chests of American frontier lawmen in
the middle of the nineteenth century, to be pinned there, a shiny
scarab from exotic lands, in the form of a sheriff’s six-pointed star
badge. Heading west across the Atlantic, across the trigonometries of
Pierre-Charles L’Enfant’s Washington DC and passing close by the early
masonic lodges and synagogues of the original colonies, the trail cools
as the destination approaches. Who commissioned the first sheriff’s
badges? Where were they used? Who designed and made them? Scholarly
sources are nearly silent on these questions.

Some badge
collectors suggest that early American sheriffs cut the simplest shapes
they could by hand from scrap metal or Mexican coins. Such an
immaculate conception of the hexagram as a sign of authority in the
untamed western territories would constitute a profound and improbable
coincidence. More probable is the notion that frontier lawmen imitated
the star medallions of knights or English bobbies.

It is
difficult to name a symbol more venerable or ubiquitous than the
hexagram. Starting around 950 BC, it was put to use by every prominent
monotheistic tradition long before it was fetishized by costumed
American boys grasping cap guns. Sheriffs still wearing the six-pointed
star might be amused to learn that it has been used on distant
continents to control thunder, envy, poisoning, sudden death, evil
spirits, despair, poverty, and snake bites—a “personal device” and
magic diagram designed to keep natural and supernatural forces in
check.

This rich history makes it safe to assume that the US
Sheriff’s hexagram badge does in fact have a pedigree, though one that
has been obscured by poor record-keeping and pulp fiction static,
leaving a sort of royal orphan on the doorstep. No predecessor has
claimed paternity, but strong family resemblances are not difficult to
find.

The astonishing powers of Jerusalem’s King
Solomon—purported to control evil spirits, the weather, and
animals—were so closely associated with his signet ring bearing a
hexagram inscription that the symbol is widely known as the “Seal of
Solomon.” Solomon’s father, King David, is also said to have benefited
from the protective influence of the hexagram in his duel with Goliath,
and likewise lent his name to the “Star of David” or “Magen [shield of]
David.” Legends suggest that skillful exploitation of the six-pointed
star helped both father and son to unify rival communities in a desert
environment where armies and courts could not offer timely relief.
Mystical rabbinical texts carried the hexagram forward as a sacred
diagram meant to encrypt and preserve the unspeakable name of the
Hebrew god.

Hinduism treats the sacred hexagram (satkona yantra)
as a trap or container for demons and associates it with the Dionysian
god Kataragama. Like David and Solomon, Kataragama had sovereignty in
wild, insecure spaces beyond the margin of civilization where roguish
behavior, intoxication, subversive activities, and a blurring of normal
boundaries were commonplace. The two interpenetrating equilateral
triangles of the hexagram resolve tensions between opposites—male and
female, rational and instinctive, fire and water, human and divine. The
same theme of integration and resolution explains the appearance of the
hexagram in the Buddhist Tantric mandala of Vajravarahi.

When
operating along the fluid edges of human experience, the need for
mastery has been traditionally mediated by a six-pointed star. Often
wielded as an engraved talisman in a permanent material, like Solomon’s
famous ring, the hexagram can stamp itself onto other objects or bodies
as an identifying seal or brand. German provides firm linguistic
connections between supernatural powers (hexen: to cast a spell; Hexe:
witch), the number six, and its geometric representations. When German
settlers established farms in Pennsylvania, they shielded livestock
from disease and fire by marking their barns with star-shaped “hex”
signs, “as sure in their efficacy as anything in life may be,” one
regional scholar suggested.

Hex sign on a Pennsylvania barn.

The Great Seal of the United States (the thirteen stars form a hexagram).

The Leningrad Codex, one of the oldest examples of the complete Hebrew Bible, 1008.

American freemasons shared this
confidence in the hexagram’s utility, borrowing it frequently for
ritual purposes and the design of advanced degree medallions—such as
the Royal Arch degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of
Freemasonry. By the late-eighteenth century, the Great Seal of the
United States incorporated the hexagram, owing to the strong masonic
affinities of the founding fathers.

By the first half of
the nineteenth century, western expansion gained momentum due to the
Louisiana Purchase and the promise of cheap farmland. Resources and
property needed protection, but the terrain was vast, and development
of a legal infrastructure lagged behind commercial investment. Interim
solutions were needed; the sheriff’s office was a ready tool, and the
nation’s most powerful men were familiar with the sacred geometry of
the hexagram. Here, several branches of the orphan’s hypothetical
family tree became intertwined.

Consider Baltimore,
Maryland, where Scottish Rite Freemasonry was introduced in the late
1780s by Joseph H. Myers, a prominent Jewish member of the Royal Arch
degree. A National Masonic Convention was hosted by that Royal Arch
Chapter in 1843, about the same time America’s first architectural
hexagram appeared on the city’s Lloyd Street Synagogue. By 1853,
Baltimore police officers were among the first in American cities to
wear star-shaped badges. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was
completed in the same year, providing Baltimore’s traders—especially
Jewish wholesale and retail merchants—with unprecedented access to
expanding western markets. Hexagram, symbolism, medallion, and a keen
interest in effective law enforcement on the frontier converged neatly
in Baltimore, one of several possible points of departure for the
westward migration of the six-pointed star. Whether the sheriff’s badge
received complimentary one-way passage on the B&O may never be
known.

For certain, it was precisely in the decades after
1850 that the six-pointed star made its western debut as hundreds of
newly appointed sheriffs gamely confronted train robbers, horse
thieves, fugitives, unreconstructed veterans of the Confederate Army,
and natural hazards on the frontier. They did their work armed only
with a six-shooter and a magical six-pointed star diagram. It was said
then that there was more law in the Colt six-gun than in all the courts
combined. Did sheriffs and their patrons hope that an ancient occult
talisman might tip the balance? Did the snakes, rebels, and robbers
feel some other kind of awe when the six-pointed star reappeared in the
wilderness, with its immutable mandate?

Jon Calame is a partner with Minerva Partners, a non-profit consultancy
group focused on quality in the built environment. He specializes in
post-conflict urban rehabilitation. His book, Divided Cities: Belfast, Beirut,
Jerusalem, Mostar & Nicosia, will be published by the University of Pennsylvania
Press in early 2009.

Cabinet is published by Immaterial Incorporated, a non-profit organization supported by the Lambent Foundation, the Orphiflamme Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Danielson Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Katchadourian Family Foundation, and many generous individuals. All our events are free, the entire content of our many sold-out issues are on our site for free, and we offer our magazine and books at prices that are considerably below cost. Please consider supporting our work by making a tax-deductible donation by visiting here.